Police consider Muslim link to cemetery attack

The headstones of 42 British soldiers who fell in combat in the First World War have been desecrated in what police in northern France believe may have been the work of Islamist attackers.

Police and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission initially believed that the damage to the Albuera cemetery last Saturday in Bailleul-sir-Berthoult, near Arras, was caused by local vandals after a drunken night out. No slogans admitting responsibility or proclaiming any cause were found.

But the scale and nature of the attack are such that police now refuse to rule out the possibility that Muslim extremists were responsible. At least one Molotov cocktail was used, and the attackers even set fire to a register of war dead and a visitors' book.

Although there have been more serious desecrations of Jewish graveyards in France in recent years in a sign of rising tension between the country's large north African and Jewish communities, this was the worst incident to have taken place at a First World War cemetery. The cost of making good the damaged items is put at £20,000.

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"It is a shocking scene," said Christopher Farrell, of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who visited the cemetery yesterday. "We will be putting up temporary markers immediately, but some of the headstones will have to be rebuilt and re-engraved.

"Two or three broken headstones, that unfortunately happens sometimes, but 42 - that's never occurred. Everybody is shocked. The French are taking this very seriously, and we are giving them our full co-operation."

Michel Dupuis, the mayor of Bailleul-sir-Berthoult, said: "These young men came to fight for our freedom. What has happened is a disgrace. All of us in France are ashamed." Hamlaoui Mekachera, France's minister for war veterans, expressed outrage at the "barbarous and shocking" acts and said he hoped that those responsible would be brought to justice.

Albuera cemetery dates from the Battle of Arras in 1917. There are 253 graves, including one containing a German soldier and 110 of unidentified Britons.

Remains recovered after the war were buried in the cemetery, which had to be expanded to accommodate them. Soldiers from several different units, including the Royal Fusiliers and Staffordshire Regiment, are among the dead.

Eric Blakeley, the curator of the Staffordshire regimental museum, said: "It is disgraceful that people can treat monuments to the war dead in this way."

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission looks after 3,000 constructed cemeteries, war graves and plots in France containing the bodies of 575,000 casualties from both world wars. "Albuera is in a small commune in a very rural area," said a spokesman. "Only about 1,300 people live in the area and locals are as outraged as we are."

The commission, which still suspects an "isolated incident of vandalism by local teenagers rather than anything more sinister", says the damaged headstones will be repaired or replaced.